Exploring Multispecies Assemblages in Roman Urban Gardening Initiatives

Abstract

In this article I will discuss the potential of using the assemblage thinking in multispecies ethnography, as a method for developing postanthropocentric situated accounts. It is an extremely relevant tool with which to relate to make emerge how space is co-constructed through hybrid associations of human and nonhuman actors, which exceed human intentionality. Reading entanglements through a material-semiotic approach provides interesting analyses of the exploitation of the nonhuman on a global scale, but also offers stories of possible situated multispecies relationships of care. These relations are not universal essences, but situated entanglements in which nonhuman actors play an active role. Relying on STS feminist reflections, focusing on care could have the potential of unveiling less anthropocentric more-than-human relations, showing how being depend on each other.

Keywords

• urban gardening
• post-anthropocentrism
• ailanthus altissima
• mellifera bee
• multispecies ethnography